In the last post we saw Paul lay out the first piece of his argument that everyone is in the same boat before God and needs salvation. That first piece used common Jewish stories about Gentiles to make the case that those who have never even heard of the Law and the Prophets have no excuse before God. But just as his audience may be getting all riled up in self-righteousness, now Paul drops the other shoe and effectively traps them in their own judgments. Let’s see how he does this.
Text
[2.1] Therefore, you — every human person who casts judgment — are without defense: for when you judge someone else, you are condemning yourself, for you who cast judgment do the exact same things. [2] And we know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is in line with the truth. [3] But do you really think, you who judge those who do such things while doing them too, that you will escape God’s judgment? [4] Or do you look down on the riches of his kindness, forbearance, and patience, being ignorant that it is God’s kindness that leads you to repentance? [5] But by your hard and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the Day of Wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, [6] who does in return to each in accordance with what they have done: [7] For those who patiently do what is good, seeking glory, honour, and incorruptability, there is eternal life; [8] but for those who, from a mercenary attitude, don’t follow the truth but instead follow what is unjust, there is wrath and the full force of God’s will, [9] anguish and constriction upon every human soul that insists on doing wrong, first to the Jew and then the Greek. [10] But there is glory and honour and peace to all who do what is good, first to the Jew and then to the Greek. [11] For there is no partiality with God.
[12] For all those who have sinned apart from the law will also be ruined apart from the law; and all who sinned with the law will also be judged by the law. [13] For it is not those who have heard the law who are just as far as God is concerned, but those who do the law who are found just. [14] For when the Gentiles who did not have the law by nature do what the law requires, those who don’t have the law are themselves the law; [15] such people demonstrate that the law’s function is written on their hearts, so their own conscience is a fellow witness of this, along with their conflicting thoughts which will either condemn or defend them [16] on the day when God will judge all that people hide, in accordance with my gospel, through Jesus Christ.
[17] And if you call yourself Jewish and you rely on the Law and boast in God [18] and you know God’s will and determine what matters because you have been instructed by the Law, [19] and if you are convinced that you are yourself a guide to the blind and their light in darkness, [20] instructor of the foolish, teacher of young children, and have the form of knowledge and truth in the Law — [21] so then, who you teach others, do you not teach yourself too? While preaching not to steal, do you steal? [22] While saying, “thou shalt not commit adultery” do you cheat? While you abhor idols, do you rob temples? [23] While boasting in the Law, do you dishonor God by breaking the Law? [24] For, as it is written, “God’s name will be blasphemed among the nations because of you!”
Experience
I’m struck at the start of this passage by both the strong link to the previous section and the switch from the third person to the second. Whereas Paul has been content so far to talk about Gentiles in the general, here he’s pointedly shifted from ‘they’ language to ‘you’ language. I wonder what might be happening here.
I also notice the strong theme of divine judgment in these verses, a judgment that is grounded in what people do. In a book that has been used for so long to defend the doctrine of salvation by grace alone, I’m curious to see how this theme develops.
Finally, the section ends with a significant section about the misuse of the Law, and I wonder if hidden in those criticisms we might find an idea of what its proper use might be.
Encounter
Paul shifts to ‘you’ language here, directed at self-righteous judgmental individuals in the audience. But it’s hard to understand who exactly he’s referring to. At first glance it seems like he must have the Jewish Christian contingent in Rome in mind, but there’s no explicit reference to Jews here until verse 9, where they are paired with Gentiles and there’s no reference to the Law until verse 12. When he does seem to transition to speaking to Jews within the community, he words it in a weird way. And we’ve already seen that the Roman churches seem to have been predominantly Gentile, so it would be strange to address the small Jewish minority in such a bold way so early in the letter. I’m curious about what might be happening here.
Explore
A few questions have constellated around the text so far, questions which will form the basis for the rest of today’s post:
- What is happening in the form and rhetoric of the passage?
- What is Paul saying about divine wrath and judgment here, particularly as it relates to human actions?
- What can we glean about the Law from Paul’s discussion of its misuse?
- Who is Paul really addressing here?
Text and Rhetoric
While some older commentators and translations think 2.1 starts a completely new section in Romans, grammatical markers (dio ‘consequently) and shared themes (’no excuse,’ a focus on actions) make a strong link to the previous section more plausible (Witherington 73; Eberhart; Matera 62; Kruse 119).
Despite these connections, where in chapter 1 Paul wrote about Gentiles in the removed langauge of “they” and “them,” now he shifts to the more direct language of “you” (Kruse 119; Eberhart). To use courtroom imagery, Paul has spent the previous section outlining all the evidence about other people but now levels his accusation against the jury. The word order foregrounds the shock value before pulling back (“Consequently, without excuse you are, o human, every one who casts judgment…”). This shift is why so many commentators speak of 2.1 tripping the “rhetorical trap” Paul had laid for his readers in 1.18-32 (see for example Tonstad; Hanks 618). But before we read too much into this, it’s important to consider the rhetorical device Paul deploys.
Diatribe as a Rhetorical Device
This section is almost universally identified as belonging to the rhetorical form known as a diatribe (e.g., Eberhart; Matera 58; Kruse 119). When we hear this word today we think of a harangue, but in Roman rhetoric, diatribe involved addressing an imagined opponent and heading off their arguments (Matera 58). In this case, the diatribe is against those who hypocritically cast judgment on others for doing things that they themselves do. While a lot of scholarship gets unhelpfully bogged down in trying to pin down the identity of Paul’s imaginary opponent, what’s actually helpful about understanding the passage as a diatribe is that it means that Paul isn’t necessarily leveling the accusation of judgmentalism against anyone in particular in his audience, but against the self-righteous, judgmental and hypocritical person, no matter who he or she may be. That doesn’t exactly let the Romans off the hook, since it would apply to them inasmuch as they hypocritically cast judgment on others — something which Paul has led them to do in the previous section.
Argument Structure
Before moving on, let’s look quickly at how the argument of the passage is structured. The first piece (2.1-11) focuses on the theme of hypocrisy. Knowing right from wrong or believing in God’s loving character is not an excuse for either self-satisfaction or judgment of others, but must always lead to repentance. While there is Jewish priority in both reward and judgment, this is not Jewish exclusivity. Everyone, Jew and Gentile alike, is judged on exactly the same criterion: how they live in the world.
The second piece of the argument focuses specifically on the role of the Law in this: It’s not enough, he argues to have and know the Law; the whole point of the Law is living it out (2.13). And in fact, it’s fully possible for Gentiles to do what the Law requires without ever having heard it, becoming in this way “themselves the Law,” driven to do what is right by their conscience.
Finally, he turns towards Jewish Christians specifically — or at least those who claim and value such an identity. Once again the focus is not on the Law itself but about abusing it, hypocritically teaching it while not following it.
Romans 2 and the Mechanism of Divine Judgment
There are a few pieces of Paul’s argument that deserve a bit of focused attention.
Hypocrisy
At first glance it may seem surprising that a section about God’s apocalyptic judgment of all humanity would focus so much on religious hypocrisy. But this is precisely the focus of Jesus’ teaching about judgment in the Gospels (e.g., Matthew 6.2, 5; 7.1-7; 23.13ff). The early Christian witness agrees unanimously with the apocalyptic Judaism of its day that we will be judged by what we do, but it consistently twists that belief by centering our attitudes towards others as a key, even determinative, element of those actions.
Divine Wrath
Progressive Christians don’t generally talk about divine wrath. But if we believe that God is loving and just and made the world to reflect that love and justice, then injustice must make God angry. So we can even say that divine wrath is a necessary corollary of the idea that God is love. In this passage, wrath (orge) is paired with thymos, a very difficult to translate word that I’ve rendered with the paraphrase “the full force of God’s will.” I did this because it’s not essentially an ‘anger’ word, but speaks to a person’s life force, vitality, or passion (in the contemporary English sense). In this way it’s a helpful pairing here with ‘wrath’; it’s not a trivial anger at a perceived slight, but something that emerges from the depths of God’s character.
So the big question for us as Christians isn’t whether divine wrath exists, but what God does about it. Here, Paul is addressing the ‘natural’ state of things: God looking down in (just and merciful) judgment on a world whose injustice we all contribute to in big and small ways. While Romans does have an answer to this question, it’s not quite in view yet rhetorically.
The Law and Conscience
In 2.12-24 Paul introduces the theme of the the Jewish Law (Torah) for the first time in Romans. Much more will be said about the Law later in the letter, but what’s important here is that the Law isn’t just to be possessed, studied and meditated upon, or even taught; it must also be lived out (2.13). That’s the whole point of the Law: to shape behaviour towards God’s compassionate, just, and peaceable ways.
Controversially, Paul goes on to say that Gentiles have the capacity to live in those ways without ever knowing the Law. And inasmuch as they do, they are better off than a Jewish person who has the Law but doesn’t follow it. This idea continues to rattle a lot of people, leading some to insist that he must be talking about Christ-following Gentiles (Jewett (2013) 33f; Kruse 135). But I think it’s better to read it as Paul saying, without reference to Christian doctrines of sin and salvation, that God wants people to live well and it’s at least theoretically possible to live in just ways apart from the Law — not perfectly, not ‘salvifically’ (to put Protestant minds at ease (Stott 88)), but simply generally living well enough in faithful and peaceable community (Witherington 84; Matera 66). This is nothing more than what he’s already argued in 1.18-32.
Jewish Prerogatives Under the Law
In the third paragraph here, Paul talks about the Law in three groups of five statements:
- Five prerogatives of God’s people (confidence in the Law; boasting in God; knowing God’s will; discernment of wisdom; and studying God’s ways)
- Five ways God’s people are rightly called to teach and serve those outside the community of faith (Note: This sense of a Jewish vocation to enlighten the world was a common part of Hellenistic diaspora Jewish self-understanding)
- Five ways God’s people’s hypocrisy fails that vocation (Jewett (2013) 36f)
Being God’s people has both privilege and responsibility attached to it (cf. what we’ve seen about how ‘faith’ worked in the ancient Mediterranean world). And if you fail in those responsibilities there’s no point in boasting in the privileges, because all you’ve done is turn God into a laughingstock (Jewett (2013) 37; Wright 204). Those who have the Law and don’t live it out are in exactly the same position as the ‘ignorant’ Gentiles from 1.18-32, while Gentiles who live out the just ways of the Law without having heard it are counted among God’s people.
Impartiality
The whole point here is that no one has a ‘special dispensation’ against either sin or its consequences (Keesmaat & Walsh 115). Everyone is accountable for their actions. There is no room for self-righteousness, spiritual arrogance, or presumption based on identity (Kruse 118; Matera 59). This is hardly a new idea: divine impartiality is taught in Deuteronomy 10.17 as well as Sirach 35.12ff and Wisdom 6.7. But even the oldest truths need to be reaffirmed and Paul does it here in no uncertain terms.
Challenge
But who exactly is Paul addressing here? In Protestant circles, this section has traditionally been interpreted as being against hypocritical, self-righteous Jews, an idea that is still promoted in recent evangelical scholarship (Kruse 119; Moo 125; Stott 87; Schreiner 102), but has long-promoted antisemitism (Nanos). So it’s worth interrogating through that lens.
It should be noted that, for a number of reasons, in recent scholarship it’s become more common to propose a Gentile audience for Paul’s diatribe (Nanos; Witherington 76; Eberhart). Some also split the difference, suggesting Paul’s argument is directed to “God-fearers,” Gentiles who were attracted to Judaism and even followed much of the Law without ever formally converting (SBL; Moo 126).
It’s a tricky question and one without a wholly satisfying answer. The good news about this is that it’s ultimately immaterial, since Paul’s diatribe is addressed to anyone (’o human being’) who hypocritically casts judgment on others (Eberhart; Jewett (2013) 30; Matera 57; Witherington 76), and his whole point is that everyone, of any background, ethnicity, or religious persuasion will be judged on the same criterion: how they live in the world.
The fact that we as Christians keep on perpetuating this cycle of us-versus-them, insiders-versus-outsiders judgmentalism despite this clear teaching of both Jesus and Paul goes to to show just how deeply entrenched this tendency is. As Stott points out, this is a case of psychological projection: we hide behind our ‘correct’ theology or identity as belonging to the ‘good guys’ and use that position to act as the morality police, pointing out others’ faults even as we brush those same faults aside in ourselves (Stott 82).
The gospel robs us of this mechanism by breaking down those insider/outsider distinctions, whether ancient (Jew and Gentile, Judaizing Christian and non-Judaizing Christian) or modern (Roman Catholic and Protestant, Evangelical and Mainline, White and POC, etc.) (Gaventa; Eberhart). It then further insists we place our attention on our own life: If we see a neighbour sin, the response is to see their behaviour in our own life and repent. On the flipside, if we contemplate God’s love and forgiveness, this too leads us to repentance rather than complacency. For at the end of the day, we will be judged on our actions. And again disrupting the natural course of our self-righteousness, Jesus and Paul both insist that a big part of our actions is our orientation and attitudes towards others. We will be judged by the standards by which we judge others.
This is why I’ve called Christianity an ‘anti-religion’. It consistently stands in opposition to what we might call our natural human religious tendencies, self-righteous judgment of others and insider-outsider divisiveness first and foremost.
Expand
If we want a growth-oriented experience of reading Scripture, we can hardly do better than the interpretation of this passage that has emerged in this study. It’s all about stopping focusing on what other people are doing — or especially on what our prejudices make us think they’re doing — and focusing instead on how our own actions impact the world around us. And as far as the gospel is concerned, our attitudes about others are a big part of this.
Summary & Conclusions
After telling a familiar story about the general sinful state of the world — a story his audience would have been familiar with and largely accepted — Paul turns the tables on his readers: If we’ve cast judgment on anyone for sinning in the ways his story talked about, we’re condemning ourselves too since that same story is true of us. If we love the Scriptures and teach them to others but fail to live them out, again we condemn ourselves by our hypocrisy. We will all be judged on our actions, including our attitudes towards others. And in this, belonging to the right ‘in-group’, believing the right theology, or having the right moral code is only valuable inasmuch as we actually live it out. And so there is no room for self-righteousness or complacency: we must, all of us, keep our eyes on our own plate, recognize our own sin, repent, and live accordingly.
* For full references, please see the series bibliography.
Matthew Root 